Calling all wine enthusiasts! Central London’s first-ever urban winery has opened its doors for tours. Housed in a former gin distillery that’s within spitting distance of West Brompton tube station, London Cru crafts its wines using fresh grapes that are hand-selected from European vineyards.

A few months ago, around 25 tonnes of grapes arrived at the winery from France and Italy. This fruit has been sorted and pressed on-site, and the juices are now fermenting nicely in tanks and barrels, ready to be made into London’s first commercially available wine: around 18,000 bottles of it!

On a fascinating tour of the winery, I spoke to winemaker Gavin who said that the opening of London Cru should complement the capital’s recent “foodie explosion”.

“Although London has a thriving wine scene, it has never had a wine industry of its own,” he added.

London Cru is set to change all that by producing four different types of wine: Chardonnay, Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon and Barbera.

As well as being a fully operational winery, London Cru is offering tasting tours, and the chance to get stuck into the winemaking process – and you won’t even have to leave zone 1!

This film shows what happened when the first grapes arrived at the state-of-the-art winery: